BADGES AND COSTUMES. 193 



has occurred with dresses and ornaments. It was thus in 

 Rome. &quot; All these insignia,&quot; writes Mommsen, &quot; proba 

 bly belonged at first only to the nobility proper, i. e. to the 

 agnate descendants of curule magistrates; although, after 

 the manner of such decorations, all of them in course of time 

 were extended to a wider circle.&quot; And then, in illustration, 

 he says that the purple-bordered toga, originally significant 

 of the highest rank, had, as early as the time of the second 

 Punic war, descended &quot;even to the sons of freedmen; &quot; 

 while the gold amulet-case distinguishing the triumphator, 

 was, at the same date, &quot; only mentioned as a badge of the 

 children of senators.&quot; So was it, too, with signet rings. 



&quot; Originally only ambassadors sent to foreign nations were allowed 

 to wear gold rings . . . ; later, senators and other magistrates of 

 equal rank, and soon afterwards knights, received the jus annuli 

 aurei. After the civil war, . . . the privilege was frequently en 

 croached upon. The first emperors tried to enforce the old law, but 

 as many of their freedmen had become entitled to wear gold rings, 

 the distinction lost its value. After Hadrian the gold ring ceased to 

 be the sign of rank.&quot; 



Sumptuary laws in later times, have shown us alike the 

 distinctions of dress which once marked off classes and the 

 gradual breaking down of those distinctions; as, for exam 

 ple, in mediaeval France. Just alluding to the facts that in 

 early days silk and velvet were prohibited to those below a 

 certain grade, that under Philip Augustus shoe-points were 

 limited in their lengths to six inches, twelve inches, or 

 twenty-four inches according to social position, and that in 

 the 17th century, ranks at the French court were marked by 

 the lengths of trains; it will suffice, in illustration of the 

 feelings and actions which cause and resist such changes, to 

 name the complaints of moralists in the 14th and 15th cen 

 turies, that by extravagance in dress &quot; all ranks were con 

 founded,&quot; and to add that in the 16th century, women were 

 sent to prison by scores for wearing clothes like those of 

 their superiors. 



How this diffusion of dresses marking honourable posi- 



